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Without the right to communicate and democratisation of communication, the right to life, liberty, freedom of speech and expression is meaningless.It attempts to keep track of traditional media, offline media and digital media that faces the onslaught of monopolistic tendencies and is wary of localisation of media. It is part of Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) For Details: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/mediavigil/info

High Court finds application of UID/Aadhaar illegal like the Parliamentary Committee on Finance

New Delhi, March
4, 2013: Responding to the direction issued to the Union of India and Union
Territory of Chandigarh by Punjab and Haryana High Court in the matter of Civil
Writ Petition 569 of 2013 filed in the High Court against Union of India
and others, the Executive Order for making Unique Identification (UID)/Aadhaar has
been withdrawn. The affidavit of the Union Territory of Chandigarh withdrawing
its Executive Order is attached.

In its order the
bench of Justice A K Sikri, Chief Justice and Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain dated
February 19, 2013 had not noted that the petition “raises a pure question of
law.” The order is attached. Since
the Executive Order was withdrawn, the case too was disposed of March 2, 2013
with a two page order. The order is attached.

The Order observes, “In this writ
petition filed as PIL, the petitioner has challenged the vires of notification
issued by Union of India for making it compulsory to have UID Cards. Admittedly,
this issue is pending before the Supreme Court and therefore, on

the last date of hearing i.e. on
19.2.2013, we did not observe anything on this issue.”

It is further observed that “Second issue raised in this
petition is that vide order dated 5.12.2012, respondent No.3 i.e. Deputy Commissioner,
U.T., Chandigarh has given directions to the Branch In charge
Registration-cum-Accountant, office of Registering & Licensing Authority,
Chandigarh not to accept any application for registration of vehicle and grant
of learner/regular driving licence without UID card.”

It is quite bizarre that
Union Territory of Chandigarh remains ignorant of the fact that UID is not a card,
it is a 12 digit number. The entire government machinery is hiding the fact that
fundamentally UID is not a proof of identity, it is an identifier contained in
the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR)of (UID)/Aadhaar Numbers. Union
Territory of Chandigarh failed to inform the Court the UID is not a card but an
identification number based on biometric data without any legal mandate.

The petition had
made the following prayers:i)Issue a writ in the nature of certiorari to
quash Executive order dated 5.12.2012 passed by respondent no.3passed in violation of Motor Vehicles Act,
1988 and Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 vide whichUID has been mandatory for the registration
of vehiclesand grant of learner/
regular driving licence.

ii)a writ in the nature of mandamus
directing Union of India to accept other proofs of Identity and address i.e.
Voter I-Card issued by Election Commission of India, the Constitutional body
and Passport issued by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Govt. of India and other
proofs of address, age prescribed under Rule 4 of Central Motor Vehicles Rules,
1989 for issuance of learning/ regular driving licence and for registration of
vehicle;

iii) Further it
sought direction for Union Territory of Chandigarh and Union of India not to
make mandatory UID for essential public Utility Services and accept other
documents as proof of Identity and address as per the Rules;

iv)a writ in the nature of certiorari
quashing notification dated 28.1.2009 being illegal and further issuance of a
appropriate writ declaring the Unique Identification Authority of India
constituted vide Notification dated 28.1.2009 unconstitutional as the same has
no legal sanctity as the UIDAI been constituted and functioning illegally as
the National Identification Authority of India Bill-2010 is pending in the
Parliament of India.

The writ
petition had emphasized that during the pendency of the petition Executive
order dated December 5, 2012 and other similar executive orders vide which
Adhaar have been made compulsory for essential public utility services may
kindly be stayed.

In its concluding paragraph the March 2, 2013 order of the
High Court reads, “Today, short affidavit of Mr.M.Shayin, IAS, Deputy Commissioner,
UT, Chandigarh is filed stating that the aforesaid instructions have been
reviewed and now the insistence of UID card is no longer treated as mandatory.
No further orders are required to be passed in this petition, which is
accordingly disposed of.”

It is noteworthy
that UPA’s Budget Speech of 2013 announced that “We are redoubling our efforts to ensure that the digitized
beneficiary lists are available; that a bank account is opened for each
beneficiary; and that the bank account is seeded with Aadhaar in due course.” In
the light of the High Court’s order, the implementation of opening of bank
accounts seeded with UID/Aadhaar is legally and constitutionally questionable. Earlier, Parliamentary
Standing Committee, Finance rejected the UID/Aadhaar project and the related UID Bill in its
report to the Parliament dated December 13, 2011.

Citizens
Forum for Civil Liberties (CFCL) has been campaigning against unregulated
biometric, surveillance and identification technology companies since 2010 and
had appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee, Finance in this
regard. CFCL has consistently underlined that the silence of the States which
are quite vocal about threats to federal structure from Union Home Ministry‘s
National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and National Intelligence Grid
(NATGRID) that integrates 21 sets of databases in the matter of the creation of
UID’s Centralized Identities Data Register (CIDR) disregarding the fact that
Planning Commission’s CIDR and Home Ministry’s National Population Register
(NPR) is inexplicable.

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